Yahoo's Top 10 Controversial Games...

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...Is garbage. Although there are some things that belong on there, others shouldn't belong on there on the first damn place. Take a look.

Death Race:

Inspired by the cult film Death Race 2000, this 1976 coin-op challenged players to run down humanoid "gremlins" while avoiding tombstones left in their wake. While its graphics seem primitive by today's standards, it was labeled "sick" by countless media outlets, earning it the title of the world's first controversial video game.

Okay, other than the obvious antagonization of video games by the media, nothing wrong there.

Mortal Kombat:

This legendary fighting game series hasn't always enjoyed flawless victories. Though its slick graphics and instantly iconic characters made it a breakout hit, its sheer brutality and chilling "Fatalities" made it an easy target for anti-violence crusaders. Eventually, the game was brought before Congress in hearings that led to the creation of the body that puts age certificates on games to this day, the ESRB.

Nothing wrong here, either, but this here pisses me off:

Doom:

Landmark Martian monster mash Doom has been riling up religious groups since flying out of Hell in 1993, but it didn't truly hit the big time until it was tied to the tragic 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Several victims' families filed lawsuits against the film and video game industries, which were ultimately dismissed.

I'm guessing Yahoo got to the subject of the Columbine High School Massacre too quickly and took the obvious route: Blame Doom. However, I took a look at this at Wikipedia, and found out why this claim is ridiculous. Here's what really happened:

From Wikipedia

In April 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher in the Columbine High School Massacre. The two were allegedly obsessed with the video game Doom. Harris also created WADs for the game, and created a large mod named "Tier" which he called his life's work. Contrary to certain rumours however, neither student had made a Doom level mimicking the School layout, and there is no evidence the pair practiced the massacre in Doom.

So, even though these people were (allegedly) obsessed with doom, it never actually drove them to such extremes. It turns out that these people had screwed-up minds, superiority complexes, and were sociopaths. I get sick and tired of the media blaming that tragic shooting on doom. It makes me want to take a BFG to their asses!! ...in doom, of course. ;)

Postal:

Naming a game after a slang term describing homicides by disgruntled U.S. Postal employees during the '80s and '90s might be considered a lapse in judgment...which is exactly what the USPS sought when they sued the pants off the developers for trademark infringement. The case would eventually be tossed out of court.

Okay, seriously, I've never heard any controversy about that. I expected them to take a shot to Duke Nukem 3d, because, in a level where he goes into a post office, he said "looks like it's time for me to go... POSTAL!" That would've had as much relevance as this. Or, even better, do it on Postal 2! That game has so much controversy surrounding it that ignoring it and putting up its predecessor would be a complete "lapse in judgement", or, probably, a "lapse in common sense!"

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:

Calling "Hot Coffee" -- the game's infamous, sexually-explicit mini-game -- a significant controversy is an embarrassing understatement; the incident opened the floodgates of video game legislation, resulted in a massive recall and re-rating of San Andreas, and obliterated the 2005 fiscal earnings of Take 2 Interactive. Maybe they should have ordered tea.

Yeah, I can't blame them for putting the "Hot Coffee" mod on there. That was significant(ly embarrasing) for video games and probably led anti-videogame advocates such as Jackass Thompson into action.

Resistance: Fall of Man:

This acclaimed first-person shooter was one of the PS3's bright spots during its first year. Unfortunately, the designers forgot to ask the Church of England for permission to use Manchester Cathedral in a game featuring guns, bullets and alien hordes. Both sides eventually made nice, though the seemingly negative publicity led to a significant increase in sales.

Okay, how did that even make the list? This game is on the top 10 controversial games because the developers apparently forgot to get permission to replicate some church in England? How does any part of that not sound even remotely ignorant!?

Manhunt 2:

Officially destroying the Wii's innocence, Manhunt 2 allowed users to perform horrific executions using the system's motion-sensitive controllers. That quickly earned it the dreaded AO rating by the ESRB, effectively rendering it banned until the developers edited the offending content. Sadly, all that hubbub was for naught, as the game received low scores and marginal sales.

Manhunt 2 did have a heap of controversy, but mostly over the AO rating. According to the ESRB, games with the AO rating has "Content which is suitable only for adults 18 and older." Games with the M rating has "Content which is suitable only for mature audiences 17 and older." I never got that the M rating is completely acceptable and yet the AO rating is some video games "kiss of death," when the age requirement are only 1 year apart.

Mass Effect:

When Fox News and psychologist Cooper Lawrence heard that players could consummate a romantic relationship in this role-playing adventure, they went on the offensive. Unfortunately, they also got the facts wrong, resulting in a deluge of angry words from game publisher EA and tons of free publicity for the award-winning game.

OMG BLURRED SEX SCENES VIDEO GAMES BAD REPORT REPORT REPORT

That's how Fox News thinks, anyway, when they're not going like this:

OMG (allegedly "bad" thing) (dumb conclusion) REPORT REPORT REPORT

LittleBigPlanet:

This groundbreaking platform game inadvertently raised the ire of the Muslim world when it was discovered that one of the game's licensed songs contained sacred passages from the Qur'an. Sony issued a full recall only days before releasing, costing the company both revenue and peace of mind during the busy holiday season.

...Wait, what? Okay, you're talking about LittleBigPlanet here. One of the cutest (and least controversial) video games of this generation. It doesn't seem fitting to put it on the top 10 controversial lists just because Muslim groups are pissed off about some song lyrics. There are countless game that have questionable lyrics. As a matter of fact, the ESRB has 2 phrases for it in the ratings system: "Mild Lyrics" and "Strong Lyrics." GET IT RIGHT, DUMBASSES!!!

And finally, the icing on the cake...

Resident Evil 5:

Set in an African nation teeming with undead monsters, the latest in the acclaimed horror series has been accused of promoting racist imagery by featuring a white protagonist killing hordes of black zombies. Despite the controversy, the game has already shipped over 4 million units worldwide.

...

(Takes out BFG from the vault from my closet and shoots a gigantic blast of plasma at Yahoo! for their dumbassery)

...Ahhh, that felt good. Now, where are we again? Oh, yes, RE5.

Okay, first off, this game is set in Africa, the origin of the virus. And where would you happen to find in Africa? That's right, AFRICANS! What else would be infected? Lions? Elephants? German settlers?

Second of all, Leon Kennedy has been shooting zombies. When he was created, skin color wasn't even a thought. Also, nobody complained when he was shooting Spanish zombies in RE4!

And finally, the whole report is trying to say that, even to this day, racism still exists in the media, no matter how ridiculous it is. In my opinion, if you're reporting on racism, you're only feeding the beast and making it bigger.

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I don't get it. How can you get more worked up with the Columbine connection than this:

Landmark Martian monster mash Doom has been riling up religious groups since flying out of Hell in 1993, but it didn't truly hit the big time until it was tied to the tragic 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Several victims' families filed lawsuits against the film and video game industries, which were ultimately dismissed.

:P

And these lists are just bullshit anyway, nothing new about that. Of course, if you knew how to read you would have also noticed that it was the muslims who allegedly were angry about Little Big Planet.

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I'm pretty sure you guys are backwards on your thoughts on the LittleBigPlanet one. It wasn't Americans that gave a shit about it at all. There was outcry by a large group of muslims that their book was being used in music in the game and they went all apeshit like they always do.

Something very similar happened with Ocarina of Time years ago.

Anyway, I think most of the arguments for these ten games are pretty well put as all ten of them did cause an ass ton of controversy. To say Doom wasn't controversial is pretty dumb too.

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I'm pretty sure you guys are backwards on your thoughts on the LittleBigPlanet one. It wasn't Americans that gave a shit about it at all. There was outcry by a large group of muslims that their book was being used in music in the game and they went all apeshit like they always do.

Something very similar happened with Ocarina of Time years ago.

Anyway, I think most of the arguments for these ten games are pretty well put as all ten of them did cause an ass ton of controversy. To say Doom wasn't controversial is pretty dumb too.

Alright, my mistake, I misread the article. Fixed.

And to the Doom controversy, I'm not saying that Doom wasn't controversial, I'm saying how dumb the media gets when there's a game involved in a shooting, like Counterstrike in the Virginia Tech shooting.

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Okay, how did that even make the list? This game is on the top 10 controversial games because the developers apparently forgot to get permission to replicate some church in England? How does any part of that not sound even remotely ignorant!?

This was a fairly big thing in the UK. All the religious nuts went crazy about it. For about three days then everyone found a new thing to bash.

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This groundbreaking platform game inadvertently raised the ire of the Muslim world when it was discovered that one of the game's licensed songs contained sacred passages from the Qur'an. Sony issued a full recall only days before releasing, costing the company both revenue and peace of mind during the busy holiday season.

...Wait, what? Okay, you're talking about LittleBigPlanet here. One of the cutest (and least controversial) video games of this generation. It doesn't seem fitting to put it on the top 10 controversial lists just because Muslim groups are pissed off about some song lyrics. There are countless game that have questionable lyrics. As a matter of fact, the ESRB has 2 phrases for it in the ratings system: "Mild Lyrics" and "Strong Lyrics." GET IT RIGHT, DUMBASSES!!!

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When I played the RE5 demo my main concern was fighting off a mob of raging homicidal people, not what skin color they are. If there is any controversy in my mind, it's that Chris Redfield needs to lay off the freaking steroids.

The LittleBigPlanet one confuses me. Did the outraged Muslim groups believe that song was marginalizing their religion? Or does the Qu'ran forbid its passages being reproduced in any media other than itself (probably unlikely especially today)?

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The LittleBigPlanet one confuses me. Did the outraged Muslim groups believe that song was marginalizing their religion? Or does the Qu'ran forbid its passages being reproduced in any media other than itself (probably unlikely especially today)?

They're outraged because they can get away with being outraged and they know it. It's as fundamentally simple as that.

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There was a song in the David Byrne/Brian Eno album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts that got cut cause it had sampled people chanting the qu'ran,

"Way back when the record first came out, in 1981, it might have been '82, we got a request from an Islamic organization in London, and they said, 'We consider this blasphemy that you put grooves to the chanting of the Holy Book.' And we thought, 'Okay, in deference to somebody's religion, we'll take it off.'"

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So, even though these people were (allegedly) obsessed with doom, it never actually drove them to such extremes. It turns out that these people had screwed-up minds, superiority complexes, and were sociopaths. I get sick and tired of the media blaming that tragic shooting on doom. It makes me want to take a BFG to their asses!! ...in doom, of course. ;)

I've never been convinced that anyone (other than a select few extremists) blamed video games for anything. I think that the question itself got repeated over and over "Did violent video games lead this kids to kill?" but really never answered. It's your typical attention-grabbing yellow journalism. "Did Doom cause it? You decide." The question is repeated over and over in the media but nobody is really coming out and saying yes.

I think the vast majority of people have enough sense not to blame video games. It's just a few extremists that believe there is any connection.

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I thought KMFDM had something to do with Columbine's shootings (DOOM was mentioned in that article for being part / inspiration for Columbine).

It was funny when GW was newly elected, MSNBC was having a live interview with Laura Bush. With her love of schooling, education and being a teacher / former teacher, one of the final questions they asked is, "what precautions will this administration take to ensure safety at schools and no more school shootings occour."

Her response was a confident smile, "That was a problem for the previous administration and will not happen with ours."

The very next thing on MSNBC was going live to another school shooting in progress.

Muslims think music is blasphemy? I didn't know that. If they do think music is blasphemy and they're not supposed to listen to it, then they must be the most boring-assed people in the world. Religions always put restrictions in the weirdest places, such as the Jews not being able to eat pork, Christians hating gays because homosexuality is a sin, or in this case, Muslims not being able to listen to music, because it "misleads from the path of Allah" or something. I could be wrong about the music hating Muslims, though.

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KMFDM was involved to the same extent Doom was - one of the guys had one of their albums. Apparently the song "Stray Bullet" corrupted their hearts and minds or something (you can find it on YouTube if you care).

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This acclaimed first-person shooter was one of the PS3's bright spots during its first year. Unfortunately, the designers forgot to ask the Church of England for permission to use Manchester Cathedral in a game featuring guns, bullets and alien hordes. Both sides eventually made nice, though the seemingly negative publicity led to a significant increase in sales.

Someone should tell Iceman57. I'm sure he wouldn't object to some free publicity/notoriety for his cathedral map.

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Muslims think music is blasphemy? I didn't know that. If they do think music is blasphemy and they're not supposed to listen to it, then they must be the most boring-assed people in the world. Religions always put restrictions in the weirdest places, such as the Jews not being able to eat pork, Christians hating gays because homosexuality is a sin, or in this case, Muslims not being able to listen to music, because it "misleads from the path of Allah" or something. I could be wrong about the music hating Muslims, though.

The American black metal band Taghut comes to mind with both Anti-Christian and Anti-Islam lyrical themes. Music is OK but they could have been a little more creative lyrics than something like this:

Taghut song lyric exerpt of the song "Burn the Nations of Islam":

Militant religion - Faith is forced upon
the civilization - Allah's will is done
Blasphemy is punished - Kill those who don't give in
Burn the Holy Nations of Islam

Allah is dead - Your holiness is lies
Reveling in Muslim's Deaths - Their righteousness despised
Burn their holy temples - Kill their priests and shahs
With violence and force we crush the name of Allah